Cozy Corner

Jemele Hill at ESPN Page 2 notes a disturbing trend, of which Darrent Williams's killing is the latest instance:

Over the past 12 months, three NFL players have been shot, and in the past couple weeks, police discovered one NFL player, Bears defensive lineman Tank Johnson, had enough weapons in his home to mount a terrorist attack. University of Miami lineman Bryan Pata was shot to death at his apartment complex in November. In Denver alone, three notable athletes have been shot since 2003 – Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter, Denver Nuggets guard Julius Hodge and now, tragically, Williams.

One unavoidable commonality about these episodes of gunplay: all of the athletes are black.

It leads to an inevitable question from all of us, but particularly mainstream America: Why do black athletes often seem to find themselves either holding a gun or staring down the barrel of one?

A good, and disturbing read; and a good followup to Juan WIlliams's Enough. Jemele notes some key problems:

While America is generally a violent place, no culture in this country glorifies violence more than the African-American community. And consequently, no other racial group is as disproportionately affected by it.
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Two things you almost always see when "MTV Cribs" features a black superstar: a poster of Tony Montana and a poster of the Godfather. Montana and Michael Corleone, though fictional, are considered heroes by young black men everywhere. Montana and Corleone had one thing in common: both killed people to gain respect.
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BET, the same network that saw fit to cut its nightly news program, has a new show called "American Gangster," which "chronicles the life and times of some of Black America's most notorious crime figures."
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Black men constantly receive the message that they can't make it in life through using legitimate means, and the only way they gain society's respect is through the street game.